of the musical flow is absolute; phrase seems to grow out of phrase (the drama being true and the music always exactly expressive of the essence of the drama, this follows as night the day); and partly by reason of this, and partly owing to the simplicity of the themes and tunes, the total effect is one of stately breadth.  Third, the wealth of invention, the constructive power, and the command of technical devices, place Wagner in the first rank of sheer musicians.  True, he could not write a symphony such as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven wrote; but neither could they have written a music-drama; the music-drama was his form, the symphony theirs.

In the next scene we have music of a different sort.  A shepherd-boy pipes and sings one of those songs which, for freshness and purity, seem unapproachable—­the watchman’s song in the first act of the Dutchman is another example.  The piping goes on while the elder pilgrims chant a sort of marching tune as they pass—­part of it is the second section of the great hymn already described—­the boy shouts “Good luck!” after them, and Tannhaeuser, in an ecstasy of relief and restfulness after the unceasing whirl of lust and fleshly delights from which he has found deliverance, pours forth his soul in a wonderful phrase.  It is repeated afterwards when Tannhaeuser very guardedly tells Elisabeth of the wonder of his deliverance; and indeed it is expressive of a mood that became more and more characteristic of Wagner as he grew older, as though he got momentary glimpses of some blessed isle of rest where peace and relief from all earthly troubles could be found.  A few years later we find him writing to Liszt of his longing for death as an escape; and though his appetite remained good, and he seemed bent on having the best of everything on his table, we can well believe that, overstrung by nature, in constant poor health, and making stupendous demands on his nervous energy (like his own Tannhaeuser), doing everything too much, he had moments—­nay, days—­of reaction and feelings which he expressed quite sincerely in his letters.  This brief passage touches the sublime.  The hunters enter, and from the moment Wolfram begins his really beautiful song about Elisabeth, it remains on Wagner’s highest level.  The finale is a set piece, of course, and is in free and joyous contrast to the lurid heat and sensual abandonment of the first scene.  While the trees wave in the wind and the sun shines, the men shout merrily, and the huntsmen blow away at their horns—­and Tannhaeuser has returned to his former healthy life.

In the second act we have Elisabeth’s greeting to the hall of song, very charming; a duet with Tannhaeuser, very fine in parts, but not a true love-duet; the popular march; and then the tournament.  Now, Wolfram’s bid for favour seems to me both too literal and too long.  He does what undoubtedly the minstrels of old did—­freely declaims his verses, occasionally twanging his harp.  He